anthropometaphors

Juniper "Joon" Pearl

Nearly 4 years ago my cat Joon disappeared.  He was an innie-outie and didn’t show up for dinner one night.  Or brekkie the next morning.  Or any other meal, ever again.

Time passed; I moved into SF, around SF, and back into the house Joon and I once shared.  All the while, I frequented animal shelters looking for Joon among the dozens of cats waiting for a new chance.

Joon would be a hard cat to mistake.  When he was a sturdy young cat at the age of 2y, he weighed in around 16 pounds.  He stood at least 6-8″ taller than the other cat he grew up with.  Joon was also incredibly long, and was covered with long buff-colored fluff.  In colder months he had a thick mane surrounding his head and running down his chest.

His personality was just as unique as his build.  He was born of a partially feral cat mama, so he was on the shy side.  One of his favorite places to hang out was under a circular table that suffered from a skirt.  While the table may have languished beneath the skirt, Joon thrived; the skirt served as a one-way veil between him and the world.  He could be detected at night, slinking around the house and chirping his curious song.

The hubs and I were at the animal shelter this afternoon, meeting pups, of all things.  As we were on our way out, we stopped into the cat adoption room.  Cute kittens stuck wee paws out through crate doors.  Adult cats snoozed.  I did a quick scan of the room, without knowing what I was looking for until I saw this mass of fluffy buff-colored cat crammed into the far corner of a crate.  The stats on his door matched those of a would-be Joon.  A volunteer removed the guy from his crate and put us into an introduction room together.  I sat in awe, struggling to reconcile this new cat with my memories of Joon.  We left the shelter with the intention of digging up old photographs of Joon and getting copies of his vet records for more information.

At the end of the day, I ask myself if it matters whether that cat is the same Joon I raised from kitten-hood.  He is a 6yo cat at an animal shelter that will euthanize him if he stays there long enough, isn’t that reason enough to rescue him?  But how can I communicate that gem to the critters I live with?